Radiation is complete!

Thursday was the last day for radiation.  Those nurses just could not resist the temptation to draw on my body again.  Big circles surrounding my lovely tattoos with lines radiating from the circles.  It being my last day for treatment, they said that they would miss me.  I can believe it.  Who else would let them draw all over their body?

Friday we went in for a CT scan with contrast.  To prepare for the experience, I was supposed to drink what they called a Barium cocktail.  It wasn't a cocktail at all.  It was raspberry flavored chalk.  I am sure it was better than chalk flavored chalk, but not by much.  Two quarts of the stuff.  And all within an hour and a half of the scan.  Actually "drink" is not quite the right word.  I was supposed to "sip" the chalky slurry and take 15 minutes for each third of a quart.  This required almost constant sipping.  The taste was tolerable at first, but got less so by the sip.  The theory is that this stuff will block the x-rays from passing through my digestive organs, and presumably highlight any organisms that don't belong there.

After they had done the barium scan, they injected me with some kind of iodine solution.  This really warmed me up.  I could feel the wave of heat flow up my arm, then fill my chest, even up into my throat, and then it was gone.  Quite a sensation.  While that was happening, they were running me through the scanner, telling me to hold my breath, then breathe, etc.   Similar to the barium, the iodine is to block (maybe "absorb" is a better word) x-rays from passing through the blood stream, heart and other organs so that they can be distinguished from other stuff that doesn't show up on the anatomy charts. We won't get the results of this activity until Wednesday, when we see Dr. Grossman and his bow tie again.

We will then know if the plan to do chemo needs to be modified.  Right now the schedule is to get an infusion of carboplatin once a week for three weeks, and, starting the same day, take one dose of everolimus for 21 days straight, then lay off of both for one week.  We repeat the cycle once, and then take some more pictures.  PET scan, CAT scan, DOG scan?  Who knows.  We will find that out when the time comes.  In the meantime, everything is going well.  I still don't notice any symptoms, but to be safe, I am eating garlic, onions, drinking cinnamon - ginger tea, along with the essiac tea mentioned earlier, swallowing frankincense pills, taking blueberries mixed with other fruit as though they were medicine, and avoiding sugar, except for an occasional dollop of ice cream to help me get the berries down.

MJG